#croftconfessions

Full Confession:

I struggle with depression and anxiety daily. Lately, it's been worse than ever. I try to immerse myself in the games to keep my mind off things. I try to tell myself that I need to hold on because that's what Lara would do.

I look back throughout my life and I can't remember a moment without Lara. My Dad brought home a Playstation when I was 3. I remember seeing a girl on TV and asking who she was, and saying she was pretty.

That was when I became hooked.

As a small child, she helped me through school and my mother's alcoholism. She helped me through my parent's breakup. My Grandfather's cancer and death. She made me want to live, to learn, to better myself. Not long before my Grandad passed away, he bought me the Tomb Raider magazine that only ran a short time in UK. I think I still have the poster somewhere, covered in love heart stickers. He encouraged my love for Lara because he knew she was a positive influence, something I desperately needed in my life.

When I started self harming at age 11, I'd beat myself up afterwards, because Lara wouldn't have done that. Again, I turned to the games instead of hurting myself. As I got older and saw different psychiatrists, and was put on various antidepressants, one psychiatric nurse told me that living through Lara and "being her" to be confident was a good idea, but to maybe let her go when I could cope on my own. Obviously, I never took the latter part of her advice.

Lara helped me through the bullying I faced as a teenager. Through more fights with my mother. Eventually my mother and I bonded because of Lara when she started helping me with costumes.

I've made some of my dearest friends because of Lara, back in the day on various forums. I've travelled to meet two of them. I have her name tattooed on me to remind me to be strong.

Even now, when I feel like everything is going wrong, when I think about suicide daily, I look to Lara for inspiration, for strength. Never underestimate the impact a game can have on someone's life. In my case, if it weren't for a game, I wouldn't be here.

Tell the World what Lara Croft and Tomb Raider Mean to You!

Tell the World what Lara Croft and Tomb Raider Mean to You!

Full confession :

Lara Croft was always my idol, not only did she bonded me with my dad who went away when I was a child. We used to play hours and hours of tomb raider. I was just 4 years old. I was so scared of the wolves in Tomb Raider 1 but it bonded me to my dad so much. He used to make tasks for me in small little messages that he said "just came in the mail from egypt". I went to the kindergarden as Lara Croft, I was 5 years old. I still have pictures from that but its to embarrassing to show them. I always loved Lara's personality. Ive seen her as this person who knew everything. She was so smart. She was so strong. She made me love school. I wanted to be good in school because I thought I wanted to be as smart as Lara was and she would want me to be good in school. I bought every game, everything I could find about Lara. My mom even bought me Lara Croft figure. When I was 12 years old I had a bad accident, where my head ended up being broken. I fell 12 meters onto cement. I survived. But I ended up in hospital and later on in a rehabilitation center. I was just 12 year old and alone in a center full of people who were mentally sick. They wouldn't let me go home. I just cried and cried. Until a friend of my mother has send me a card ( I attached a photo on the card). It was a card with Lara on it and the card wished me well healing and she wrote " Even Lara doesn't get every jump right". This gave me strength. Instead of being sad. I thought of this rehab center as a challenge. What would Lara do? She would took it as a opportunity to learn something. As you can see Lara was and still is a big part in my life. Actually Lara made me become the woman I was always supposed to be. I'm a transgender woman. And Lara was helping me realising it.

Tell the World what Lara Croft and Tomb Raider Mean to You!

Full Confession: Lara Croft has always been a source of strength for me to look to whenever things got difficult, and she also is the first person to come to mind when I think of my personal role model. All three incarnations of her have made a big impact on me as a person as well. In all honesty, I'm sincerely happy to see a 20 year old franchise still continue on strong today despite all the obstacles it took in order to do so.

Tell the World what Lara Croft and Tomb Raider Mean to You!

Tell the World what Lara Croft and Tomb Raider Mean to You!

Tell the World what Lara Croft and Tomb Raider Mean to You!

Tell the World what Lara Croft and Tomb Raider Mean to You!

Tell the World what Lara Croft and Tomb Raider Mean to You!